Wrong Again ... I need a fact checker!

Today's post is brought to you by .... I DID IT AGAIN! Ok, no one actually caught me, so i could probably get away with it, but then how could i go on being both of your's source for news and commentary? The inept terrorist that blew up his pants (or Knicker-bomber) is not from Kenya as i reported to you yesterday. He is actuall Nigerian which is siomilar except that Nigeria has a good soccer team and Kenya has the guys that win every marathon on earth. So i apologize and i won't do it again, well maybe i will.

So today's news- National Steak and Poultry is voluntarily recalling about 248,000 pounds of beef it said might be contaminated with a strain of E. coli bacteria. The company said the meat could be linked to illnesses in six states. Ok, sick people, it's sad and all ... but 248,000 pounds?!? A quarter million pounds of cow? How many cows is that? What are they going to do with a quarter million pounds of bacteria habitat? You can't just flush it down the toilet.

In Charlie Sheen news- No he didn't get arrested for soliciting prostitutes, no he didn't get arrested for drug posession, no he didn't get arrested for threatening Denise Richards, he just got arrested for choaking his new wife and attacking her with a knife. Yes you read that right, someone was stupid enough to marry Charlie Sheen. I didn't even know he got remaried ... congratulations to you both! And to the future ex-Mrs Sheen, i'm sure there's another fish in the crazy sea just waiting for you.

In other news- I seriously suggest that you all stop worshiping at the alter of technology. If you want to write to some one buy an envelope and a stamp, if you want to know the weather look outside and if you want to navigate buy a compass and a map. Remember maps? Those things that they sell in the gas station (yes they're still there) that fold out and have pictures of roads and towns and train tracks and show where the rivers are and stuff ... remember? They worked fine for a couple of thousand years, but they're not good enough anymore are they? No, now you need a computer hooked to a satelite that tells you there is a traffic back up and suggests an alternate route, you're far too busy to wait in traffic ...  "A Nevada couple letting their SUV's navigation system guide them through the high desert of Eastern Oregon got stuck in snow for three days when the GPS unit sent them down a remote forest road." Can you imagine that scene for a second? Husband and wife, stuck in a snowbank for three days after making a wrong turn ... GPS to blame or no GPS to blame, it is a credit to them both that they are both still alive. I mean seriously, i used to think that wallpapering a bathroom together was the ultimate test for couples (that's what my Dad told me) but 3 days to talk about who's to blame for the two of you slowly starving to death ... we have a winner!

And today we close with some news from the Islamic world that does not involve Yemen ... yes there are countries over there other than Yemen. Protests broke out yesterday in Iran. I guess that some of the people there aren't happy with no jobs or food and elections that don't really count and a couple of religous guys running everything (it's called theocracy - thank you very much 10th grade social studies) and the Iranian establishment met to decide how to handle the protest where-by they came up with a rational, practical solution to the issue of peaceful people dissenting in the streets (no union members, they didn't make concessions to please everyone) they sent the police out to meet the protesters and talk them into stopping. So the police did ... using the universal language of randomly shooting people to death. Well done Iran, nothing says "I'm secure with my ideology and the basis for my political power" like murdering everyone who doesn't agree with you. I mean who has time for discourse and the exchange of ideas anymore, especially when it means that you might have to actually allow the person that the people elected (twice, once on election day and then again in a run off) to govern the nation. What an inconvienence ... really so much easier to shoot them in the street.

Question of the day - Where do you stand on your government putting people in prison for not getting health insurance thru a private insurance company?

Wow Was i Ever Wrong

Tonights post is brought to you by ... oh, never mind that let's get right to the correction. On December the 16th ... or maybe the 19th i said that when the "UN Security forces invade Yemen ..." I was totally wrong, i thought that this President was all about coalition building and gaining the support of the world, so i'm sorry, i was wrong. So, when WE invade Yemen it is going to be to "promote stability" and inforce the "rule of law". 10 days ago we fired some missles at some "al quaida" training camps where aparently they were training innocent women and children and then fast forward to Christmas ... a lunitic from Kenya tries to blow up a airline with 50 cc's of high explosive and manages to blow up his pants and catch himself on fire instead. Which is interesting at best ... right up till the spin begins. The man is rushed to the hospital with third degree burns and i guess he was in a really talkative mood because within 2 hours the news media is told that the man has told the investigators that the device he caried came from Yemen ... i'm sure that they didn't want to know who he was, where he came from, what group he was a part of ... i'm sure they had no questions about how he got the device on the plane ... no the very first question they had for the man who tried to blow up an american airliner was, "Where did you get this brilliant device that managed to burn your pants so well?" I mean whoever the master explosive expert that came up with this one needs top be stopped at all cost. If we have to invade Yemen and kill women and children, destroy some families and prop up a government that is so unpopular that 2 different rebel groups are at war with it at the same time, then i say so be it! Here are some of the headlines about the terrorist attack in Detroit on Christmas day.

Two law enforcement sources told NBC News that Abdulmutallab had recently spent at least a month with extremists in Yemen, but that it was not clear if those extremists were al-Qaida members or radicals inspired by al-Qaida

U.S. agencies are looking into whether al-Qaida extremists in Yemen directed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and provided him with the explosives used in the failed bombing of Northwest Flight 253, senior administration officials tell NBC News.

Abdulmutallab had visited Yemen in the past few months, say officials. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is a Yemen-based offshoot of al-Qaida

U.S. Charges Suspect, Eyeing Link to Qaeda in Yemen

The man charged by the U.S. in an attempted attack on a jet told investigators that he obtained explosives from a bomb expert in Yemen associated with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Penninsula

I found those on December 26th, one day after the attack in obscure places like MSNBC, ABC news, the New York Times, i mean i really had to hunt ... one day later the headlines are all about Yemen, not Kenya (where the man was from) not security in Holland (where the plane came from) ... Yemen. The propaganda machine is in full swing getting your consent to start another war ... all we need is a shady border exchange of fire on the Polish frontier near a radio station (that's how Hitler justified the invasion of Poland). So i'm paranoid right? "Calm down Pinko, you're just saying that because it looks too convienient, sure the time line is crazy and that 30 day news blackout from the Yemeni war looks bad but there's a reasonable explanation." You're probably right, i mean it's not like they are tying every emotional news story to Yemen all of a sudden, it's not like they're suddenly making Yemen the center of the war on terror in any other way ... oh, wait. Remember Ft. Hood?

12/25/09-Reports claim that the controversial Muslim cleric who was contacted by the Fort Hood shooter before his killing spree has been killed in an anti-terror air strike.



A radical Muslim preacher linked by U.S. intelligence to a gunman who killed 13 people at a U.S. Army base is believed to have died in a Yemen airstrike on al Qaeda militants, a security official said on Thursday


12/26/09-A U.S.-born radical cleric is alive and well following reports he may have been killed in a Yemeni airstrike against suspected Al Qaeda hideouts, friends and relatives said Friday
 
Yemen caused the Ft. Hood shooting too, those BASTARDS! Oh and the American muslim cleric who is now suddenly responsible for the shooting is still alive ... he's on the loose running amuck in Yemen! He might be talking to other muslims on the phone right now as we speak! Hurry we need more euphamistic killings! More "anti-terror" air strikes! There will be more soon ... don't worry. Do you think thay'll go so far as to say that there have been bin Laden sightings in Yemen? No, they wouldn't ... well, they might.
I feel like a lone voice in the wilderness, i feel helpless, i cry for the poor people there who are going to experience more terrible war, i cry for the west that allows themselves to be lied to and decieved ... God help us all.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I wasn't planning on doing a Christmas post, but today was such an interesting day i thought i'd let everyone in on it. It started off normal enough ... in our house that's the kids getting up first and getting really annoyed that Ang (my wife) and i aren't getting up fast enough followed by opening presents and playing with a couple of toys and then breakfast and then ... well, after that it sort of varies from year to year. Sometimes we're in Florida, sometimes we're in NY, some times we spend the whole day at home, sometimes we spend the day with family. This year was a Florida/with family kind of year.
So after breakfast, we packed up the car and headed to my mother-in-law's house for some Christmas lunch and family time. My 3 girls have about a million cousins, but there were 6 of them at my MIL's house today and everyone seemed to get along well and behave themselves, which if you knew the 9 of them you would know that it was certainly a Christmas miracle. All the parents actually got to eat warm food and (thanks Terry) and i got to talk a little bible with my pastor Brother-in-law. I don't think i could possibly tell you how atypical the whole afternoon was, and in the end my middle one and their oldest played race cars with my baby daughter and everyone was nice and got along. After that we came home and my baby played with her new doll house for HOURS quietly, the other two played with the new Strawberry Shortcake dolls (yes they still smell like they used to) and i just relaxed and Ang read a book. It was the most relaxed, peaceful day i can remember ... maybe ever.

On the disappointment front, Michaelia didn't get the Nintendo DS that she wanted and Winkie is mad that for the second year in a row Santa did not leave one of his reindeer even though she asked him and he said he would (last year she got a stuffed one and was mad because she TOLD him to bring a REAL one, not a stuffed one).

Today i realized i love Christmas, even the commercialized version that we celebrate. So with that, i wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Sleep debt writing

OK, so if you’re reading this we’ve probably met since my fan base seems to consist entirely of people that I ask, “Did you read my new post?” and they say no, and then I tell them that they should and then they check it out just to shut me up. So I know I don’t necessarily look like a mass murderer or a kidnapper ... I mean I don’t wear the uniform or drive an old Dodge 2500 Ramvan ... right? I guess I’m just saying I look fairly normal, but that being said let me clarify something for you parents out there (also those of you that might be parents some day pay attention) no matter how normal someone looks, no matter how cool they seem, no matter who introduced you to them ... YOU DO NOT LEAVE YOUR CHILD WITH A STRANGER IN A CROWDED AMUSEMENT PARK SO THAT YOU CAN GO GET A CUP OF COFFEE!!! and if you were to be so naive (which is to be interpreted STUPID) YOU DO NOT SPEND 25 MINUTES GETTING A CUP OF COFFEE WHILE A STRANGER IS WATCHING YOUR CHILD!!!!! Here’s parenting in a nutshell as I understand it. God blesses you with a child which is born fragile and needy and noisy and cute. Your job is to raise the child which includes feeding it, sheltering it, teaching it things and possibly most important of all, keeping it alive and a subsection of keeping it alive is NOT LEAVING YOUR CHILD WITH A STRANGER AT AN AMUSEMENT PARK! If you were to take an elementary parenting class they would not mention this because no one in their right mind would think that anyone would be so stupid, here’s an idea ... go find a 2nd grader and ask him/her if leaving a 4 year old with a stranger is a good idea and they will tell you “No”. I have been accused of being overprotective of my children a time or two (an accusation that is completely true) but c’mon! I mean, you don’t have to leash your kids, but making a good decision once in a while is going to be necessary in order to guarantee the kid’s survival isn’t it?

So on that note, today’s post is brought to you by children that probably will not survive to adulthood because their parents are retarded and obviously don’t love them.

In senate news the US Senate managed to move to a vote on a bill they haven’t read and will make our health care delivery system in some way more inept and simultaneously more expensive. But the good news is that they decided to make mandatory use of private health insurance ... so the system is going to be a complete fiasco, but the insurance companies will get 30 million more paying customers ... so I guess that’s good ... if you own an insurance company.

I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Chanukah from the bottom of my heart. Tomorrow we celebrate the birth of Christ, and although we may all do it in different ways we will be one body, worshiping God almighty and this amazing gift of a savior born to us as the son of man. As far as Chanukah goes ... I’m not sure about the details, but it has to do with candles and oil lasting a long time and God’s miraculous provision for his people ... so thanks be to God for his provision and love this time of year. I would have mentioned Kwanza ... but I don’t think your allowed to make up your own holidays just because you want to, sorry Kwanza people ... go out and either buy a nice Christmas tree or a menorah and call it a day.

Question of the day ... what do kidnappers look like? (submit your answer in the comments section).

There is no truth to the rumor that Tiger and Lindsey Lohan are dating ... Amy Winehouse, different story.

Today's post is brought to you by my friend Megan ... who recently wrote this and i love it and i wanted to share it with you. "The economy is just terrible," says the man in the long Starbucks line as he checks his iphone. "I know," the woman, also in line, disapprovingly shakes her head side to side. She shifts her armful of shopping bags as the line pushes forward places her order. Though I couldn't make out what she said, she seemed the Gingerbread Latte with whip type. Or maybe hold the whip this year, the economy all. It reminds me of two things ... no, three things.
#1 This thing that Rollins wrote about men being like coffee and women being like martinis, it is awesome and you should check it out ... i'm not sure which of his books it's in but if you just read tham all (like you should anyway) you'll see it.
#2 That the whole Starbucks phenomenon is terribly annoying and i wish it would go away ... can i please tell you the size of my desired drink in english? And could you not correct me in italian? That would be great.
#3 Too often we forget that while we have problems in our lives, other people are not eating this WEEK so that their children can have a little rice or bread or fruit ... while we wish health care were streamlined and more affordable other people wish that there was a doctor within 500 miles of their village when their child was sick ... while we wish the troops could come home other people are being shot at and bombed and burned ... and by other people i mean MOST people.

Ok, some of you aren't paying attention to what's going on in Yemen... and by some of you i mean everyone in the world. About a month ago a war broke out there where the government army attacked the northern part of the country where a bunch of rebels were hanging out. I was fascinated because Yemen borders Saudi Arabia and is across from our pals Somalia and chaos there could block Suez canal passage and all sorts of bad stuff. So here's how the media handled it... Day 1 - War started, Yemen attacks rebels with helicopters and artillery. Day 2- Refugees try to flee to Saudi Arabia and are stopped by the Saudis at the border ... 100,000 with no food and water and no villages to go home to Day 3 through Day 30- NOTHING! Total news black out, like it never happened ... and i searched for it, i mean i spent hours looking at every news site i could find, even foreign ones. Day 31- US bombs Yemen al-qaida training bases.
So apparently the war has escalated some, now there are seperatists fighting the government in the south and the rebels fighting the govenment in the north and al-qaida, it seems, was hiding under the 60 women and children that we hit with missles from Navy warships. No really, they were, because we said we hit our target and the people standing next to the dead people seemed to think that mostly we blew up some women and children. So that's the next war we're going to be involved in, and the best part is the Saudis never let the refugees in and they couldn't go home due to the fighting so i'm sure the 100,000 or so found all kinds of food/water/shelter in the middle of a desert. No really, i'm sure that they are fine. When the UN peace keepers arrive in Yemen it will be to "promote stability" and to inforce the "rule of law" ... another prophetic moment! Never mind that the people who live there seem to dislike the government enough to go to war against it, never mind that we have never cared about Yemen before ... we NEED to help them. The news blackout was so that people didn't think we were joining a revolution on the side of the establishment, so that we could pretend we were getting involved to continue the "War on Terror" not just because we're proping up an unpopular, corrupt regime cold war style because it serves our economic intrests.

And i decided to write a health care bill, don't worry, it's not 2000 pages long.
All insurance policies are hereby portable, if you leave one company for another or to be self employeed or to be "downsized" your insurer will be required to offer you the policy that you already had at the same price, if your employer was paying part of the expense the insured will be required to pay the full amount in order to continue coverage.
An acceptable retail price will be established for hospitals, there are no $500 asprin or $275 bandaids anymore.
Lawyers hereby can no longer incite people to sue their doctor and malpractice limits can be capped by the doctor so long as his limit is published where the patients can see it and make informed decisions.
Doctors will here by make medical decisions and insurance companies will pay for those decisions, doctors will be subject to audits and reviews of their practices to root out corruption and statistical anomolies ... no corporate insurance monger will deny commonsence treatment or diagnostic test due to the possible cost . Insurance is supposed to be a risk for the insurer not the insured.
And last but not least the morbidly obese will not be treated for heart disease, unless telling them to walk home and eat vegetables counts as treatment ... no longer will you eat twinkies and chicken fried steak in front of the TV after each of your 6 bypasses before finally dying of a massive heart attack. And while we're on the subject of treatment for the undeserving, intentionally injecting yourself with a lethal dose of heroin is not cause for treatment, it is a sucessful suicide that should not be interrupted. We don't catch people in midair when they jump off buildings ... some people should get what they want ... and before you boo me answer me this, why did noone care about them before they tried to die? Drug addicts are shunned and sent to prison and treated like human refuse ... right up until they almost die, and then they've valuable. Don't worry, tomorrow they'll be back on the street and soaking up all the scorn you have to dish out. It's just like the abortion debate; when are we going to realize that the legality of abortion is not the problem? Drugs are not the problem, crime is not the problem ... the problem is that your daughter doesn't know that you love her, or she doesn't even know you; the problem is that you raised your son to be a coward that disrespects women and is afraid to face up to real consequences, the problem is that the once invincible sense of community that was a dominant force in most of this country is dead. So i say let them die and you say put them in prison so that you don't have to deal with them, the broken people that you created. If you don't want 16 year olds and 20 year olds to get pregnant out of wedlock don't wait for them outside of the Planned Parenthood ... it's a little late at that point. If you want girls to wait until they are married and decide to have children to get pregnent then you might want to get involved when they're about ten ... if you want people to stop taking drugs you might want to go ahead and get involved before they start shooting up and let them know that you care, that life is worth living. So that's the health care bill. It would save money and be more effective. Any suggestions or comments?

Aparently i forgot that this was the "new" blog and slipped into the old blog there for a minute ... sorry about that. So in other news the big get together in Denmark was a total bust, what a surprise. I am shocked that China doesn't want to limit their pollution, and the united states and england don't want to pay billions to Africa ... never saw that coming. And the repubilcans are trying to block the vote on the health care bill ... thhe bill as it turns out has not even been finalized yet, so the people you elected and pay for are arguing about what "might" be in a bill that they might see at some point in the future ... ain't government grand?

Oh and the title was totally a teaser, but it would be really funny if Amy Winehouse came out and said she was with Tiger ... at least i think it would be funny.

Taxpayers pay for Sexual Predator's erection?

Today’s post is brought to you by Denmark, not since that movie with the girl from 10 Things I Hate About You have you been so popular Denmark! Good for you! What better place for third world countries to send representatives with visions of sugar plums and of huge “climate change” subsidies only to have their hopes and dreams crushed by the western nations devalued currencies and unwillingness to agree on just about anything. For most of you it will be your first white Christmas, so forget the conference ... go to the Viking museum and have some hot cocoa.


So I’ve been trying to do a Monday-Wednesday-Friday thing, but this story came to my attention and I almost exploded trying to wait until tomorrow. In Australia there is an inmate named John Powch ... he is 62 years old and since he is in prison for being convicted of three violent sexual assaults in 2004 New South Wales Corrective Services has categorized him as a “serious sex offender” ... I gather that’s something like our “sexual predator” tag. Apparently Justice Health (the organization responsible for inmate health issues) does not consider the reason an inmate is imprisoned when determining health care treatment which is why, at tax payer expense, a convicted rapist would be transported to a public hospital and undergo tests and treatment for erectile dysfunction. No, you read that right ... TAXPAYERS are paying to fix the penile erection problems of a jailed rapist! Here is Powch’s criminal history ...
“...a hardened criminal who has been behind bars most of his adult life, is in jail until October 19, 2013. He was named one of New South Wales' 10 most wanted criminals after escaping from Cessnock jail in 1980, during which time he robbed banks.In the 1970s, Powch was involved in armed hold-ups with Ivan Milat, who was cleared of the charges but went on to become a serial killer.By the mid-1980s, Powch was the right-hand man for major drug importer David Kelleher and jailed in 1985 for 18 years for conspiring to import heroin.” (www.perthnow.com)
So, not only is he a rapist, he has committed multiple armed robberies, escaped from jail previously, kept company with a serial murderer, and imported heroin to poison children and fund terrorism ... so of course if he can’t get it up take him out of prison and drive him to the urologist ... ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!!!!!!!
There are so many things wrong with this I just don’t know ... c’mon Australia get in the game, don’t be like us and get all soft ... where’s Crocodile Dundee? Let Mick Dundee be this guy’s urologist Australia, one little swing of his mammoth knife and all future appointments can be canceled, Dr. Dundee can fix this for you in an instant ... “That’s not erectile dysfunction (knife comes out) “kerhunk” ... now, that’s erectile dysfunction.” Problem solved.
I’m so tired of poor people’s tax money being spent like it doesn’t matter ... people work hard for that money, maybe act like it means something to you (not just Australia, everyone).

And I hate to have a one story day, so here’s something that didn’t make our news that you’d probably like to know about ... I mean it seems like it would be important, but after all maybe there was no room left since we need to hear more about Tiger Wood’s melt down. I would hate to miss any of that and waste my time learning about actual people actually suffering ... so here it is. Tens of thousands of villagers in the Philippines have fled their homes after one of the nation's most active volcanoes spewed lava and sent ash plumes high into the sky. Soldiers and police marshaled the evacuation from the danger zone around the foothills of the Mayon volcano, amid concerns a big eruption could occur at any moment.
"After the series of ash puffs and ash explosions of 1000 meters (high), we cannot rule out a major explosion,'' said Cedric Daep, the head of disaster relief operations in the region. He said authorities aimed to evacuate nearly 50,000 people from villages within 8km of the volcano by tomorrow. Albay provincial governor Joey Salceda said that nearly 21,000 people had been evacuated by nightfall yesterday.
"Zero casualties is still the goal of our province,'' he told the ABS-CBN network. Some residents were carried out on military trucks, while others walked out carrying boxes of belongings on their heads.

Happy Tuesday, and don't forget to comment.

No Christmas for Immigrants!

Today’s post is brought to you by the Salvation Army who have decided that it would be “super christmassy” to release a statement denouncing gays and to demand that gift recipients in Texas show their social security cards before getting any Christmas presents for their children, because nothing shows the love of Christ like refusing to help foreigners whose kids have no toys.


OK, so in some technology news the lost e-mails from the Bush administration have been found. You remember right? Congress subpoenaed the e-mails a few years ago and the White House responded by deleting, I mean losing, I mean what e-mails? So in the end the ex-President said that no e-mails were missing and then, the other day, the not missing e-mails were found ... all 22 million of them! I can see how they could be over looked, after all 25 million e-mails would be obvious, but I over look the first 22 million messages in my “in box” all the time. So now we can see what they were hiding right? Right? Wrong. Federal regulations do not allow for the e-mails in question to become public until 2014 because the clock does not begin ticking for release until they are received by the National Archives. So right about the time that no one alive cares anymore, you’ll be able to peruse the correspondence Bush doesn’t want you to see. That’s comforting.

In crazy Italian news, the Prime Minister of Italy was hit in the face with a model of a gothic cathedral while he was signing autographs. If looking at the photographs of the aftermath on Silvio Berlusconi’s face tell us anything it’s that Milan needs to stop selling souvenirs made of granite. It’s not that bad? No, it’s that bad ... he’s got broken teeth, a broken nose and his lip is busted apart. Massimo Tartaglia, the loon who did it has some history of mental “issues”, that history now includes attacking heads of state with little churches ... Massimo has since thought better of the attack and written the P.M. a letter, from jail, apologizing for his “... cowardly actions...” he was not instantly pardoned upon recipt of the letter. I’m shocked. So before you get on the secret service for letting a blond and her idiot husband into a White House function ... just be glad that President Obama isn’t having his face smashed in by crazy model enthusiasts.
Berlusconi has blamed a “culture of hate” for the attack ... cuz people don’t like him and have been posting praise for the attacker on the internet. I know nothing about the guy, but when the people you represent are happy that you get your face smashed in ... it’s time to rethink what you’re doing. Maybe it’s time to find a whole new career, maybe you could charge people to dunk you in a dunk tank ... just a thought.

In history rising from the dead and talking to us news, Soviet General Victor Yermakov, who commanded the Soviet forces in Afghanistan from 1982-1983, made a statement earlier this week and in it he stated that, “We did not succeed and you will not either, they (the Afghan people) did not trust us and they will not trust you either.” and Russian ambassador to Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov decided to chime in by adding, “There is no mistake made by the Soviet Union that the international forces have not repeated.” HOW DARE YOU SIR! What do those commies know about Afghanistan any way? I refuse to believe that a couple of old Russians could possibly know more than President ...oh ... really ... they did what? ...they already tried to stabilize Afghanistan by invading and forcing diverse ethnic and tribal groups to submit to a central authority that they had propped up in Kabul?
It didn’t work?
Who knew.
Alright so maybe the commies know about this whole “Afghan invasion” thing ... but they didn’t have truth, justice and the American Way in their side. So here’s how it’s totally different, When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985 he expressed impatience with the Soviet war in Afghanistan and demanded that a solution be found with-in a one year deadline. As a result the Soviet forces were increased to 108,800, fighting increased, and 1985 became the bloodiest year of the war. Despite heavy casualties, the resistance to Soviet occupation never lessened and 4 years later the great Red Army went home in complete defeat. See, that’s nothing like Obama wanting a deadline, increasing troop deployment to over 100,000 and fighting against an insurgency that cannot be defeated.
What do you mean it’s exactly the same thing?
When we bring our troops home in 4 years we will have victoriously changed nothing at all in Afghanistan ... well, we did get the Taliban to invade Pakistan. Those guys had it coming.

And finally, in personal news ... don’t listen to my wife who had decided to accuse me of knocking over the Christmas tree twice on her blog lovelaughterandonecrazylife.blogspot.com, it was clearly her fault that the tree fell over and since there was noone there to witness it, you’re just going to have to take my word for it ... pretty much everything else she accused me of is true ... except the whole nail thing, it was only one nail, and well ... alright, I’m a bit ashamed of that one.

Banks just ain't funny.

Ok, so the plan was to have this really funny post about the banking and finance industries and how they tie into government and fiscal policy and global currency exchanges ... do you have ANY idea how hard it is to make that funny? It’s like making the book of Jeremiah funny (for all you bible readers). It’s like making a barbarian pillaging raid funny to the villagers who have been raped and left for dead (for all you non-bible readers). So I’ll keep working on that and get back to it.

Today’s post is brought to you by people who have no idea what they’re talking about but are so loud and relentless that actual smart people stop arguing with them and agree just to end the discussion. You know that guy too? Weird.

In a story that will get all the Area 51 conspiracy nuts hot and bothered ... on Wednesday night the people of Norway were treated to a spectacular display of spiraling light with a blue/green beam bursting out of the center. If you haven’t seen the pictures, check it out. People immediately assumed that the aliens had come for them, and began calling the police and news outlets to report the alien invasion. Moments later the Russians admitted that it was really a failed missile test ... the 7th time this new missile has failed in testing ... out of 12 tries. Sure Russia, sure it was a missile ... obviously a cover up for the crashed UFO that as you read this is being taken to a secret Russian Air force base and hidden underground for screwballs worldwide to speculate about for the next 50 years. But seriously, wasn’t the president in Norway today? Lemme get this right, the Russians are testing unreliable military delivery systems over the President of the United States’ hotel room? First the party crashers and now this! Has anyone told the secret service what their job is yet? They are supposed to keep the guy alive. And Russia, what in the world happened to you? You used to be scarey, a worthy opponent in the global game of dominos/prop up governments up that kill lots of their own people. Now you have multiple billion dollar missiles that make pretty clouds 58% of the time? Lemme clue you in, they’re supposed to go boom. Oh, and hide the alien.

In Crazy North Carolina red neck news, the police in Charlotte have arrested a 57 year old day care owner for selling moonshine while she was supposed to be watching other people’s children. Yes, that’s right, when the undercover agent went into the day care to buy the 2 gallons of moonshine the lady was watching your children. So of course the lady explained the “misunderstanding” to the police. You see her neighbor gave her the package and she had no idea what was in it, he just told her to sell it for $80 ... I know that when people give me packages to take to work and sell to strangers I never ask any questions ... oh and the neighbor? He’s 82 and they arrested him too. Yup he was arrested and the 400 gallons of moonshine he had in his house (read “single wide”) were confiscated. All in all just your typical Wednesday in Charlotte. The only thing missing is a mention of someone driving a ‘77 el Camino.

And now for two stories that involve complete insanity. In Iraq yesterday there was a “wave of coordinated attacks” that blew up two government buildings and killed 127 people. It’s good to see that whole withdrawal thing working out for the Iraqi people, sure seems like the National Security Force has the situation under control.

And in Brazil the organization Human Rights Watch came out with a report that stated in the past 6 years the police have killed 11,000 people. Yes that’s over 2,000 people per year. So of course the government denied the report and had some logical explanation ... right? No. Their response said that the killings were “a problem that they are aware of”. Don’t worry Brazilians who are going to be killed by the police this year ... I’m sure that they’re working on it.

Ok, so I was going to close with some commentary on the president’s speech in Norway today ... he accepted th Nobel Peace Prize (you know, the award that Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And Mandella and the disarmed IRA won for promoting peace) and as part of the deal he gets to give a speech. So I was going to break it down for you, but I’m just going to give you some excerpts and as you’re reading them just remember he was accepting the Nobel PEACE Prize ...

"A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida's leaders to lay down their arms," Obama said. "To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism, it is a recognition of history."

"some will kill, some will be killed."

"No matter how justified, war promises human tragedy,"

"There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified."

"Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: 'Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.'"  (at least someone is making sense, thanks MLK)

"So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace"

"Oh, it's not the War prize? Are you sure ... peace prize you say ... are you sure? So you're sure... ? Oh, well i can throw out THIS whole speech." (quote made up ... but the rest of them are real.)

"Mr President it's time to recieve your peace prize ...  "-random Secret Service agent.
"Hold on Bill, i'm bombing the afghan countryside, i'll be right there"- Obama

Sleep Deprovation

On a serious note today’s post is brought to you in the reverential memory of Fred Hampton. 40 years ago on December 4th Fred Hampton was shot multiple times and killed by the Chicago police department while he lay in his bed at home. Love or hate his politics, he was a promising and charismatic young man who wanted to see real changes in this country and wanted more than anything to improve the lives of those left disenfranchised in our nation. He was only 21 years old.


The reactionary instigators in the mainstream media are reporting that the government of Uganda has proposed using capital punishment in instances where people are convicted of being gay. How do they sleep at night?!? That not what it says! The law now being considered by their parliament only proposes putting to death those convicted of same-sex rape ... consensual homosexuals would only get life in prison. Wait, what?!? Oh. Carry on mainstream media, let the lambasting of Uganda continue. The law actually says that if you fail to report friends or family members for being “the gay” you can be sentenced to 7 years in prison. Landlords who rent to homosexuals will also get seven years. Africans don’t have enough reasons to hate and kill each other, so this is good, it gives them something to do. John Muwanguzi Ugandan “everyman”, is much more reasonable, and thinks the current bill is ludicrous, “I feel that the bill is good and necessary, but I don't think gays should be killed. They should be imprisoned for about a year and warned never to do it again. The family is in danger in Uganda because the rate at which vice is spreading is appalling." .I mean, a year in prison sounds harsh, but compared to the death penalty it’s not so bad. So I’m going to vote for Muwanguzi. And it makes me realize that while we don't agree about which rights homosexuals should have in this country i'm glad that we live in a country that recognizes that they have rights and we aren't trying to imprison them or kill them.

In morons from Nebraska news, Mr. Terrance Wanatabi is broke. He made his fortune running his father’s party favor import business into the ground.. Then, in 2007, he went to Las Vegas and lost $127 MILLION in a single year. Now he’s been arrested and charged with fraud due to unpaid gambling debts and in response he’s decided to sue the casino for plying him with genrous amounts of alcohol and prescription drugs. You mean to say that when you go in a casino and they offer you free drinks while you’re gambling it’s not because they want to be your friend? That’s what casinos do you idiot! They get you drunk so that you lose money making bad decisions ... here’s how it works, you bet and win a little, casino offers free drinks and you lose the money you won, they offer more free drinks and you lose the rest of the money you brought to gamble, then you wake up in the morning broke and hung over and think to yourself “why did I do that, it was so stupid” then you go HOME! You don’t sell your father’s company and stay for a year losing money the whole time! Why blame just the casino, sue your dead father for raising such a buffoon and giving him a fortune while you’re at it.

Ah Greece, home of one of the greatest civilizations in history, inventors of democracy, philosophy, perfecters of theater ... how the mighty have fallen. A year ago in Greece they rioted in the streets in response to a young unarmed man being shot by police. So how did they celebrate the one year anniversary of the tragedy? Candle light vigil? Prayer meeting? Memorial service? Meeting with police to discuss improvements made? No, they had a commemorative riot. Buildings were destroyed and they threw home made gasoline bombs at the police sent out to disperse the crowd. Not exactly 300 Spartans standing up to an empire facing certain destruction is it? No it’s more like 30 jerks trying to kill some Greek police men by burning them alive.

Next post is tomorrow and is about finance ... it would have been today but it's going to take an extra day to figure how to make it interesting.

The metamorphosis continues.

Todays post is brought to you by the unemployment rate! Hooray for new data that shows the unemployment rate shrinking from 10.2% all the way down to 10.1%. Thank goodness for that! Oh, and i know what you're thinking, but it has nothing to do with the fact that there were more layoffs but the number of people who gave up looking for work they are qualified for and took part time work making minimum wage so that they could feed themselves slightly exceeded the number of people laid off. Also, i do not at all buy into the idea that large corporations have figured out that the unemployment report scares their customers into not spending money and in turn they have found ways to cut peoples hours/wages/benefits instead of laying them off. That's just silly. So here's to the 0.1% of people that are now un-unemployed and all the projections that show a major recovery so imminent that i can almost taste it.

Okay, so today i was listening to the radio on my way to buy a 89 cent burrito at Taco Bell (i was going to get a 99 cent burger, but i could only find 93 pennies under the seat in my car) and a guy who works for the "Mutual Fund Store" was telling his audience that mutual funds were a great place to invest their money right now and that the economy was going to rebound very soon and so would the market (ie. mutual funds). Really? That's like me telling you that it is a great time to invest all your money in tires for your car, and maybe some coolant flushes. I mean you can never have too many coolant flushes. Could the guy have made any more self-serving predictions? How about,  "I think that my personal checking account is a great place to invest your money"? I'm sure that the Fed's fiscal policy is just getting ready to fix the whole massive unpayable debt/ no jobs/ falsified earnings reports/ inevitable hyper inflation. So yeah ... go buy mutual funds.

In Florida news, Pasco County (for you non-Floridians that's like the New Jersey of Tampa Bay, well it's like New Jersey with more trailer parks and cows and less disgraced govenors and Trans-Ams) has announced that they have their third official death directly due to H1N1 this year. So directly means that the person died from H1N1 and that if it wasn't for the piggy-flu they would still be driving their pick up around Pasco county ... right? So the man was really healthy except for the H1N1 and the " ... multiple chronic underlying medical conditions." My heart goes out to the man and his family. That said, isn't this a bit like blaming the death of a 106 year old on blood thinners who has had 16 by-pass surgeries and two stokes on the flu. If the state of your health is best described using words like "chronic" and "underlying" with "multiple" thrown in for good measure can we really say the flu killed you? Or is it more accurate to say he died and ... by the way, he also had the flu?

In sports news, Florida lost to Alabama proving once and for all that Florida coach Urban Meyer's insistance that Tim Tebow include the other 10 players on the offense is a huge miscalculation. If only Tebow had been out there by himself the Gators would have rushed for 16,000 yards and Tebow would finally been able to prove that he can complete a "go rout" pass to himself like he claims. In other sports news England will be avenging that whole "uppity colonist" debacle from the late 18th century in March when they embarress their former posession on the "Football pitch" during the world cup's first round of play.

In celebrity news Chris Brown stated in an interview that he "never, ever had problems with anger." Which would be great if he hadn't beaten and choked his girlfriend because she made him angry. Well, i guess tecnically she was the one who had the problem with his anger, in this case the problem she had was breathing and seeing through her swolen eye. When is Chris Brown going to go away and just hide in the cave that Ike Turner spent 20 years in?

In closing i need some help coming up with a great Christmas present idea for my wife ... Angela don't read this part ... so if you have any ideas please share in the comments section. If you're thinking Rolex ... you probably need to think more Timex. Thanks.

Friday, Welcome Home!

Today's post is brought to you by people who trample their friends and neighbors to death in search of flat screen TVs. That's the kind of determination and focus that this country was founded upon ... refusal to yeild to measly obsticles like human decency, the half dead bodies of weaker shoppers and empathy again won the day last friday!
So the apellate court of Florida ruled this week that the state legislature does not have the right to ignore a request of the Sons of the Confederacy to have a conferate flag vanity plate here in the great state of Florida. The law apparently says that if you have $20,000 and 30,000 signatures you can have any lisence plate that you want. So that's why there are 500 choices at the tag office down here. I don't know where to start with this one. There are 30,000 racist morons in Florida? I for one am shocked! The Florida lesislature has a law on the books that is poorly thought out and allows for people to drown minorities in our history of brutality, murder, rape and enslavement? C'mon ... i can't believe it! I mean honestly, it's really not enough that i drive by a confederate flag the size of a football field everyday at the intersection of the two busiest interstates in Tampa, i would like to also see it with a state sanctioned registration sticker on it.

And in the land of the sympathy strike (France), a place where every working person goes on strike if plumbers want a raise and even emergency room doctors are in a labor union, the workers at the Louvre have decided to strike in protest of potential layoffs. I mean why should you lay off museum workers just because no one is going to the museum and in coming revenue has become as scarce as cheese without mold on it . I know, they could sell the Mona Lisa to China and use the money to pay for the extra  ticket takers and guys who wear red jackets while standing around in a very official manner. That or they could have special exhibits that French people would love like paintings of people running away, or a whole room full of white flags. Or there's always the participatory exhibit where regular French people could blow filterless cigarette smoke in the faces of American tourist families. That one i bet they could charge at least 100 euros just for, lines around the block.. Problem solved.

This one hits pretty close to home on a bunch of fronts, and i know what you're thinking, but i was never abused by a nun. In Ireland the "Sisters of Mercy" order of catholic nuns have agreed to pay $193 million dollars in damages as part of a settlement for 14,000 victims of "systematic and chronic" child abuse by 18 different catholic orders who had children in their care. $90 million will be paid in cash and the rest in property holdings. That's right the Sisters of Mercy have $193 MILLION in assets that they can spare ... nuns ... nuns in a country that until very recently plagued by poverty and unemployment. Aparenty the abuse of the children included beating them up and taking their lunch money ... everyday for the past 800 years.

And i suppose i have to weigh in on the Tiger Woods thing ... i mean, everyone else is. So i don't really care about his relationship with his wife, he's right, it is private. It's completly up to her if she wants to forgive him or not (double the pre-nup) but have you seen the tramps he was running around with? Two words for you Tiger, Penicillin Bath ... rince and repeat buddy, rince and repeat.

Bold Predictions

I'm going to take the bold step of predicting the path of health care reform in the United States. I know what you're thinking, "Denis, you're too young and no one can predict what the great moral crusaders in Washington are going to do to save us, and even if someone could it would be a true Merlin of public policy equipped with a plethora of Phd's and the long white beard of socially accepted wisdom." I'll grant you that, if i had a long white beard i would feel more comfortable making predictions.
But here we go just the same. Today the House of Representatives passed a bill entitled HR 3692 with an overwhelming majority (220-215) no make that a 5 man landslide! HR 3692 is a 1000 page epic that depending on who you listen to either raises your taxes or removes benefits from seniors or limits the autonomy of the insurance conglomerates or turns the United States into the People's Republic of the Red White and Blue or makes everything you ever wanted free while making all of the problems currently associated with medical care disappear in a dramatic "poof" ... it might be all or none of these, and at least a few pages of the bill may or may not include the much debated "public option".
What they voted on today doesn't really matter. Here's what will happen next. The Senate will pass a bill that also may or may not have something in it related to medical care but it will be nothing like the bill passed in the house. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it will be shorter and not include the "public option" and there will be a clause that says all the senators get jobs consulting for insurance companies if they ever lose an election. Then the President will scold all of them and tell them that they really need to have a consensus for the "good of the American people". The legislature will spend a bunch of time on local TV talking about how they really want change (people like that word) and it's the other guy's fault that the bill has not already passed and you have not yet received your personal MRI machine. Then they will go back to Washington and pass a bill that keeps the Senator's get jobs clause, adds in a amendment that says everyone must mail $1 to the CEO of Humana, raises your taxes and says something vague about a tax break for people who have to pay for their own insurance, but to get the tax break you will have to spend $10,000 per year on medical expenses and earn less than $50,000 in household income (those numbers might be pie in the sky, but i bet they're close).President Obama will go on TV and say that the legislators are the greatest Americans in history for fighting a courageous battle to maintain the status quo and there will be some vague promises about the improvements being phased in over the next 5 years. You will either feel enraged or apathetic as a result and a bunch of republicans will be elected in 2010 as a result of the ensuing passion/lack of passion.
If all that is too much for you i'll break it down: elected officials will pretend to have ideological argument about entitlements and responsibilities, the president will step in, a bill will be signed into law that will not positively effect you in anyway, rich insurance execs and lobbyists will dine on endangered species flame broiled over burning $100 bills, elected officials will claim victory/demonize the other party in order to collect votes for next time. Oh, and you will watch and listen to all of it for months.
Meanwhile ......................................over here, there will be 40,000 more young Americans sent to fight in Afghanistan, there will be a war in Yemen, a debt crisis in Africa, tensions in South America, tensions in the occupied west bank and a crisis with Iran's desire to be a self determining nation state that can decide as it wishes to power itself with out buying their fuel from a NATO country, a domestic financial system that is about to collapse, record unemployment stagnating wages and decreased domestic production. SO remember, while your government is off sticking its nose where it does not belong we need you to go ahead and just watch as the democratically elected legislature ignores to will of the people who elected them, please focus on Health Care. Thank you.

Really?

So I have this "ad-aware" thing on here and it's there so that if you click on them then i get paid ... i am not encouraging you to do it, because i don't care and also because i'm not allowed to. Anyway, that's not the point ... the fun part is that if i type something like "ESPN is the worst channel ever created, they have ruined watching sports by over dissecting every sneeze to satisfy the plethora of networks they launched with no real demand. ESPN tries to create sports news not report it and they are typical of what has happened to journalism ... reporting has been replaced by the attempted sale of news which leads to mindless sensationalism and the promotion of trivial nonsense while ignoring real stories that might not sell. ESPN is symptomatic of everything that is wrong with TV, sports and news." There will be an ad for ESPN right below that post. SO, don't click on it, but it's there isn't it. Computers are dumb ... they don't get sarcasm at all!
So that's fun. In other news i'm looking into the concept of micro-lending, which works really well in devoloping countries like the bank in Bangladesh that loaned out $6.4 billion in 7.2 billion loans, that's right, it's less than $1 each. So, i'm thinking that we have the same issues here and in every capitalist country in the world ($1 might not work here) but loaning money to "soliodarity groups" (nonfamily co-signers that vouch for eachother and repay together) in small amounts at really low interest rates is a sustainable business model here and in Africa and everywhere else. Just the idea of a bank loaning money to people who can actually use it to better their lives and their families lives and their communities with out collateral ... i mean isn't it better, "more american" than banks loaning money to eachother and then hiring people to work at low wages in bad conditions? So i'm going to keep thinking about that and i'll let you know what i come up with. Ideas are welcome on this one.

Sell Out

It has been suggested that if i want anyone to read my blog that i would have to be less serious and talk about happy things that people want to read about. At first i dismissed this completely because i refuse to pander to "the market" and give people what they want, i mean i'm not NBC or a Washington politician right? But then i realized that i'm far too serious and that all the world really needs is some entertainment.
So i'm going to give it a try, please leave a comment and let me know how i did because i'm waaay out of my element here.
I think that it's great that JP Morgan/Chase made $140 billion in profit in the third quarter, i really think that even though people don't have jobs and there are millions of people not paying their loan payments and people all over the country are struggling to make ends meet it makes complete sense that a lending institution would make massive profits and furthermore i think that it is a sign that the entire economy must be rebounding and really a beacon of hope for all of us. I completely dismiss any one who says they found a way to cook the books and that sooner or later the other shoe will drop and the financial market will completely crash as a result of it. It just makes perfect sense that a lending institution that is not lending any money or collecting on old loans would have massive profits. It's the American way, like those fine citizens at Enron and MCI Worldcom from days past.
Oh, i'm also super excited about the fine job our elected representatives are doing in congress with the health care legislation. Now that they all agree that health care reform is necessary (where did that come from) they're just hammering out the details. I for one think the public option would be great, i would much rather a bureaucrat tell me that i'm not covered after waiting in a really long line then waiting on hold on the phone and having a minimum wage insurance conglomerate employee tell me. It would just be better don't you think? Also i'm glad that congress is doing such a great job representing the insurance companies and the AMA ... we want to be sure that the people who made our health care system really expensive and profitable while not treating sick people have some input in the new system, we can't change things ... i mean we're going to change it ... no we're not ... yes we are. At least they all agree that we're going to have more taxes, so that's bipartisan.
As far as the war goes i just know that we're winning and that's great too. I'm sure in a matter of months that the Iraqis and Afghan people will be voting for their leaders and peacefully watching while those leaders make decisions that hurt them and help huge corporations get richer just like we do here.
So, Dancing with the Stars is great, isn't it?
I mean, talk shows with audience give aways?
I mean, ESPN Sieben -Spielen auf Deutsch?
I mean, ESPN 9 - Juhydfhdhf Jsdhfjfkf
So, okay, everything is good and only getting better, one of these mornings you're going to wake up and the government and business leaders are going to have this thing fixed, everyone is going to have a job again and free doctors and lower taxes and be safe and they won't mess it up again by being the Mr Magoo of long term vision or incredibly greedy. What ever you do don't try to do anything or point out the failures of the entire system, just be quiet and wait. It's all going to be ok. The people who came up with the idea of fixing an over extended lending system by getting them to lend more money and the people who figure that foreign bombs are better than domestic tyranny have it all under control. I know i'm sleeping good tonight!

War

There have been plenty of wars in the history of this nation, it began with a war, 29 years later there was a second war with England, remember that one? You know where the Brits invaded and burned Washington D.C., it was 1812. There was the long, drawn out systematic annihilation of the native American population, the countless invasions of Mexico, the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, The Cold War, Gulf War One, Bosnia, The War on terror ... and that's not mentioning the times we have militarily "intervened" to protect our "interests" around the world. All told we have spent 66 years officially at war (Source: The New York Public Library Desk Reference, 3rd Edition) and have had 1,315,433 American soldiers killed in military action (Source: U.S. Army Military History Institute) that does not include those wounded or those missing in action. Wounded sounds too cuddly, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of men and women whose physical health will never be the same, amputees, blind, deaf, destroyed bodies. So 1.3 million dead, and we're pretty good at war, i mean we kill more than we get killed, we have the best technology, we can kill you from really far away. In WWI there were 116,00 American soldiers killed out of the total 9,721,937 battlefield deaths (source:Casualties and Medical Statistics, 1931) Almost 10 million soldier killed in 4 years. 10 million! And no army is very accurate, there were 7 million civilian deaths which excludes those who starved to death or died of disease ... so in 4 years in Europe more than 16 million people were shot and blown to pieces, for what? I really picked that one at random, you can do the same thing with any of the wars we've fought, including the one we're fighting now.

I am not for one second trying to say anything against soldiers, i always openly praise them for the sacrifice that they are willing to make. And for the work that they do.

But let us for a second think about the cost (both monetary and personal) of war. We spend billions of dollars a year to maintain and improve our armed forces, we are told that it is necessary for our defence. We pour money into the coffers of military contractors and have no adequate veteran care. When our soldiers come home sick from the battle field our government spends money on lawyers to deny them treatment rather than treat them. When amputees came home from Iraq and we housed in a veterans hospital with black mold growing on the walls we were outraged ... for a minute. The government fired someone and said it was under control and we went back to our lives. It's not the mold that needs to be fixed, it's the entire system.

Our government makes life and death decisions in budget meetings, the sons and daughters of the poor and the people of other countries are "regretable losses" ... makes it sound necessary.

Don't fool yourself, we don't fight for democracy, we don't fight to free oppressed people, your government does not send people to war for any benevolent reason, they do not rain down bombs and cruise missiles to deliver self determination. If we really believed in self determination and democracy and ending oppression do you think we would grant favored nation trading status to the Chinese regime, supply arms to the contras, supply arms to the Indonesian regime, ignored the injustice and brutality in South Africa, ignored the pleas of the UN commandant in Rwanda to help stop genocide as it was happening ... i'm getting carpal tunnel and a headache typing and thinking about this, there's a laundry list of examples, i could keep going, do some research if you want more, it won't be hard to find.

So why do we fight these wars, basically a third of the time we have been a nation we have been at war, and since 1915 we've been in 6 major wars and countless "police actions" (Bosnia and the like) ... Eisenhower told you why, remember, "beware the military industrial complex"? It's about budgets and spending. Brave men and women are sent into battle to satisfy the munitions manufactures of the west. If they aren't fired we do not need any bullets, cruise missiles, guidance systems, bombs. Your government sends people to kill and be killed when there is a gluttonous surplus of bombs. When East Timor was invaded and the people there were being killed the United Stated provided the Indonesians with the means to do it. When Iraq invaded Kuwait it was an action that required us to go to war to stop an unjust invasion. Our government talks about self determination and ignores the pleas of the Kurdish people who face genocide from two directions (Iraq and Turkey) when the Kurds rise up they are tagged as terrorists and villages are destroyed by Turkish pilots flying American attack helicopters, we used them to secure northern Iraq and then left them to fend for themselves unrepresented in the new "self determined" Iraq. Everywhere you look there are contradictions in our foreign policy until you remove the motivations given from podiums and in newspapers and realize that the motivation is money. Not money like you would think, we're not going to invade India to take all the tea, we're going to bomb a mountainous wasteland into rubble to make bomb makers rich. I mean they answer to the stock holders, we can't deny them the capitalist "right" to profit improvement. We did not invade Iraq to take the oil like you hear, we invaded Iraq so that huge multinationals would have a new market to build and sell to in perpetuity.

Do you believe that Bin Laden (or the thousands like him) needs a nation state to plan an attack in this country? An idea cannot be defeated and with every bomb we drop we are sending orphans and widows and widowers to the Taliban and al queda and hamas. "Look the Americans are killing your family, come join us and fight them" it sure must make recruiting easy. We negotiate peace between Israel and Palestine and sit idly by while Israel breaks the agreements that are reached ... and wonder why the Palestinians don't trust us.
What i'm trying to say with all of these schizophrenic examples is that there is no consistency with our foreign policy if you buy any of the reasons that are given at press conferences ... the only explanation for the state of perma-war that we find ourselves must be found outside of foreign policy ... the only thing that makes sense is the same reason that we have fought in the past. Capitalism. We go to war to open up markets, to "create" jobs and profits in the arms business. I hope that's why, because if the leaders of our country really believe that having elections in Afghanistan and Iraq is going to somehow protect us from terrorist attacks we are in a lot of trouble. Bin Laden is a figure head, there are thousands of people who hate this nation that are violent and homicidal and are only lacking means and opportunity, global democracy will not deter them, they are not controlled by governments and are not restricted by porous borders half a world away.
I vote no on war and yes on trying to repair our relationship with the world. It is your government's actions that have bred this hatred of our nation and until they understand that they will not be able to make inroads against those who wish to destroy this country.

Elected to Act Against Us

The headquarters of no major mortgage holding bank is in my county ... are they in your county? And yet the elected and publically provided for Sherriff had no hesitance in evicting my neighbors. There is not some far away sherrif returning the favor, there are no evection orders coming from my county, they arrive here with out of state postmarks and the sherriff gladly tosses his own constituency onto the street.
At what point does commonsence prevail? Where is the sherriff that will say "NO!" and refuse to act in the interest of a distant multinational banking corporation? Is it not bad enough that the federal government has sold us out to the banks and insurance companies? I fear that the only real remedy here is uprising and rebellion. Looking to washington and to the court house for answers to our plight is like asking small pox to go ahead and cure us of itself. We look to the cause of our problem for the solution and we weight in vein while no problems are solved.

Sgt. K

About two weeks ago i had the great good fortune to meet a man we're going to call Sgt. K (i didn't ask him if he minded me writing about him). Since that time i have spoken to him a few times for about an hour or so each time and i am beginning to get an idea of who he is ... and he is someone we should all know.
Sgt K. is an active duty soldier in the United States Army and is part of a special group of men in OUR army that is called upon to do dangerous things as part of a small group on a regular basis. He travels to strange, far away places and risks his life so that you may have one ... so that you can be free ... do you understand what i am saying? Sgt K is a human being just like you and i, he goes places that neither you nor i want to go and once there he does things that neither you nor i want to do ... he allows himself to be shot at, bombed, land mined cursed at and spat at by locals ... when he is not in this country (which is often) he is literally the target of many men who want to hurt our country, who want to hurt you and your children, and while there Sgt K stands between those men and you. He, and soldiers like him, allow them selves to be shot at so that you can go through your day and not be shot at.
Have you forgotten that we are at war? Have you forgotten that we are fighting a war against an enemy that would like nothing more than to bring the battlefield here to the United States? The men and women of OUR Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps have not forgotten, Sgt K has not forgotten. Right now he is here and safe, but soon he will go, only too willingly, to a strange place and defend you to his dying breath. Is there anyone in your life that you would die for? Your children? Your spouse? Siblings? Parents? How about Martin Yelig of Kansas City? Would you die for him? Who is he you might ask ... i have no idea, he is just one of the strangers that OUR soldiers fight and die for.
Sgt K met my children a day after we met, and today he told me, in no uncertain terms, that when it is time for him to go off to a foreign battlefield and fight he does so with a sense of duty knowing that MY children need to be protected from this enemy. He has seen what these people do to the children in their own country and would die before he would let the children in OUR country suffer the same fate. Your children.
So i ask you an important question ... by a show of hands, how many of you thank OUR soldiers when you see them? How many of you have taught your children of the great sacrifices made by the men and women in OUR Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force? Are you proud of them? I am and was, but i must tell you with all honesty that meeting Sgt K has shed light on the inadequate way i appreciate OUR soldiers.
When the "boys" came home from chasing dictators around the globe in 1945 and 1946 there were massive crouds waiting to greet them and thank them, and rightfully so ... in the 1970's when OUR soldiers came home from SE Asia they were mistreated by the very people they went to defend because we allowed media outlets to tell us that OUR soldiers were bad people doing bad things, crouds waited to boo them ... and i hope those people are ashamed of themselves to this day. ... today when OUR soldiers come home there is noone there to meet them. I think that it might be worse than vietnam, people don't even care that these men and women are dying for US, for YOU. The whole country shruggs a collective "oh well" and we go on to our mocha lattes like the whole thing doesn't matter. It is a WAR! We are fighting it as a nation and OUR soldiers are winning it as best we are allowing them to. Because apparently there was a fear we would with with too much ease, we have decided to demand that in a war zone, on a battlefield, OUR slodiers cannot make any mistakes, no civilian casualty is accepted. We are too worried about our place in the hippie world of the UN apparently. Did you know that during WWII we (along with the Brits) fire bombed Dresden Germany for days killing everyone and burning everything to the ground. Dresden was home to all kinds of dangerous places like an opera house and some art museums. We bombed it simply to show the Germans how far our bombers could go and that we were serious about destroying them ... and i do not think that it was a bad idea in hindsight ... we won the war and none of OUR cities were bombed. Aren't you glad? So in this war we tell OUR soldiers to go and find an enemy hiding in plain sight and kill them but never make a mistake. When two of OUR soldiers killed Iraqi civilians when on petrol they were brought back to this country tried and convicted of murder ... murder! They did not go off on their own to kill ... they went in uniforms provided by OUR army, with guns provided by OUR army entered a home as they were ordered to by OUR army and used their training and judgement to kill what they thought was OUR enemy. Now we tell them that they are criminals. We are fighting this war over there so that civilians here do not die ... because we know that in wars civilians do die.
My point to all this is that i love Sgt K ... i love that he is ready, willing and able to die to protect me. I would much prefer that he kill to protect me which he is also ready, willing , able and well trained to do. And although an unpopular opinion i'm not much interested in the methods employed by OUR army to win this war, i love them and i support them and i do not think that they need to answer to me or my peers for what they do while at war. I want as many as possible to come home safe and victorious, i want them to come home and be recognized as the heros that they are, i want to give them back the place that they should have in our hearts. I want my children to admire men like Sgt K for the sacrifices he has made for our freedom, for the lengths he goes to to protect MY children. When you see a soldier please, please tell that soldier "Thank you." and mean it.

One Man Makes a Difference

... or a woman, as the case may be. I had the great privilege to hear Kelly Green today. You can check him out at www.kellygreen.org , and i suggest that you do.
So here's the gist, Kelly Green travels the globe meeting people where they are, providing for their physical needs (medical care, dental care, fresh clean drinking water) and shares the gospel of Christ with them. He shows them how to be followers of Christ and the love of Christ and how to be saved. He goes to places like Uganda and Brazil and Germany and Botswana ... he is like the John Wayne of evangelism, he looks like an old, retired Irish bare knuckled boxer and talks in language that can be understood ... basically he talks like people you know ... with one exception. No one you know is in such awe of the awesomeness of Jesus and our God, when he talks about the Bible there is real passion and amazement in his voice. He really gets excited, and it delights me.
So here's this globe trotting messenger and today he talked about witnessing to people where you are. Telling them about Jesus and living your life in a way that they wonder about you, what is so different about you, why you love strangers and the jailed and widows and orphans, the fatherless ... and they will wonder enough to ask you and then you can tell them ... Jesus is the reason for the hope that you have, the living resurrected Christ. So the question i have to ask myself is, do i live my life in a way that people will ask that? Are my actions extraordinary enough? Do people see Jesus in the things i say and do? ... and the answer is a disappointing "sometimes". It's time to get it right, like it says in II Corinthians 5:15 "And that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again." The one true God became man, allowed Himself to be tortured and killed and then rose again, for ME! The least i can do is live this short life for Him! Thank you Kelly for coming and talking today.

Liberty or Death

... now that's the kind of passion that can really change something. Patrick Henry has been immortalized for expressing the very thing that a nation was feeling ... a nation of people who longed for liberty, a nation of people who had taken all that they would from a government that did not represent them. The colonists of the late 18th century considered themselves British and were incensed that the government of the nation that they thought themselves a part of refused to allow them to be represented and forced them to abide by the policies of a government that they had no voice in. That is where the idea of "no taxation without representation comes from" ... which brings us to today. I have a job and so i pay my taxes ... and i own a house so i pay a mortgage, and then the government of this nation gives my tax money to the mortgage company that made bad choices, i also have insurance on two cars and a house that i pay and because the insurance companies have made bad investment decisions my tax money goes to them too. So i say i want liberty! If there must be a government then i say it must represent the best interests of the people of this nation, not the best interests of international banking and insurance conglomerates who are owned by saudi princes (Fannie and Freddie). So i'm not sure that i'm quite ready for death, but we need to band together and stand up for ourselves ... so tune in for next time, i'm going to figure this thing out!

Blogs, blogs, blogs ...

I have to get up in 4 1/2 hours, and i really don't have anything to say, but here i am. So here is the thought of the day.
Beware of moral relativism. There is no grey area, there is right and wrong, and sometimes right is convenient and sometimes wrong is easy, but convenience and ease do not make them more right or less wrong. We all admire those who do the right thing at the cost of great personal sacrifice, we all admire those who oppose the wrong thing when it is difficult to do so. And then we take the convenient and easy path, ignoring right and wrong, just doing what fits us at the moment.
Do the difficult thing, do the right thing ... be someone who is too weak to do it's hero ... the person they look up to when trying to make important decisions in their own life. Be my hero!

Poppa

What can i possibly say? When i was little my poppa was retired and he would come to my house, pick my brother and i up and take us to McDonald's ... just because. He lived 40 minutes away, never called first, but he knew my mother did not have a car and was stuck in the house with us. He would order a "seniors" coffee ... back then it was like 57cents ... he never ate any of the food there. He used to take my brother and i to "The Great Escape" ... for all you non-upstaters, it was the smallest spot of ground ever to be called an amusement park (except maybe Hoffman's playland) even if now it is a six-flags park. He never rode the rides, just watched us.
When we spent the weekend there he would take us to the library and let us take out whatever we wanted, then on to the movie store to rent whatever we wanted ... he taught me to hit a golf ball (which is not like riding a bike i recently learned), he taught me to shoot, to play ping pong, how to think about women ... how to be a gentleman. He used to tell us that if we woke him up at the "crack of dawn" we'd be in trouble ... the following morning we would inadvertently wake him at some predawn hour and not get in trouble. He was big and strong and clever and funny and he loved us.
In his younger years he was the epitome of the self made man, he worked his way to being a battalion chief in the NY FD, he retired as a general from the Army National Guard, he sent 5 children to college and went from the brink as a young man in the depression to being quite comfortable as a young retiree.
He and my father would argue, and it delighted me. My father would volunteer on a home improvement project or to fix up the antique apartment he (my poppa) bought as a rental property ... this is my father's arena, home repairs, woodwork etc ... and the older could not stand the idea of the younger knowing more and being right. At the end of the day he invited my father because he needed the help and knew that his oldest son was the man for the job, but he had something in him that demanded that he be in charge. It was delightful to watch, even if it seemed to frustrate them both to no end.
The last time i saw him he did not know who i was, eight months earlier he knew me on the phone but could not remember where i lived, a month ago he knew no one, last week he stopped eating. He is gone now, and i knew it was coming ... all the same i wept like a baby tonight. I wept for not calling him back after the call where he didn't know where i lived, i wept for leaving so quickly when he did not know me last summer, i wept that my children will never know the man i knew, that my wife won't ... he was weak even when she met him (but still sharp). The last few years it's as if i have been looking through a doorway at him, "He's there ... it's OK." But never going in the room, and now the door is closed. I wept because i will miss my poppa forever and today is the first day of my life that he has not been there, i wept because we lost a great man who loved his country and made sacrifices to provide for his children and his country. I wept because i loved my poppa and i knew he loved me every moment he was alive, i felt it every time i saw him, i miss you already Pop and i love you!

Mother's Day

On mother's day i think of course about my mother ... and my grandmothers. My father's mother who is still alive and i miss because i live so far and see her so infrequently, and my mother's mother who passed away a few years ago, with whom i was very close (we even lived together for a while). I think of my wife who i have the pleasure of watching her be a mother to my three girls. All four women share the same "mommyness" the gentle spirit, the way that they can scold a child and love them all in the same moment (daddy will correct you and love you again in just a minute ... it is a subtle, but distinct difference). I have always loved the women in my life, of course my mother and my grandmothers, but my great grandmother was alive until i was a teenager (and quite healthy) i have 4 great aunts (three by blood) and then there are the teachers and sitters and neighbors that i have had the pleasure to meet along the way. I would list them, they deserve to be noted, but i don't know that anyone other than me would be interested. It's just on this day i think off all the wonderful things women have done ... not just the things they have done, but the thing that they ARE!
Our entire history is held up by stong women in the wings, and everyone knows an unhearlded, coragous women who just goes about her business of making the world a better place without looking to have anyone notice. It is as if making things better is reward enough (a foreign concept to men) and is exactly like motherhood ... raising children (as difficult as it is, as thankless as it is) IS the reward. What wonderful creatures specifically mothers are, and women more generally ... potential mothers. God has gifted all of you with the spirit of "the mother" the capicity to love without bounds, to protect and teach and nurture and nourish ... what a gift it is! God bless you all today! And everyday! Mommy, Angela, Grandma and Gram I love you so much!
And to close the perfect thought from "The Quiet Man" "... what's a house without a woman in it? Why, even Father Lonigan had a mother. (Father Lonigan responds) 'Whad'ya expect?'"

There is a trade off, or a balancing act, that goes on in every society between personal liberty and order. Certainly a there is a necessary amount of control and restraint that must be placed upon every population ... a family, a village, a city, a state, a nation ... and then the question comes, what price do we pay for order?
In the catholic neighborhoods of Northern Ireland during the "troubles" (war for self determination) there were no drugs ... NO drugs. This was the 1960's and 1970's while the rest of the world was high as a kite and beginning to understand the violent, criminal baggage that comes with permissive attitudes towards drug use, there were no drugs, no drug dealers ... none. The reason? If you were found out to have drugs or to be selling drugs the first time you would be not-so-gently warned to stop, the second time you would be shot in the knee and the third time (if you happened to be dumb enough to make it necessary) you would be killed.
In NAZI Germany there were no petty thieves ... if you were caught stealing or burglarizing some one's home you would be put on a train and shipped off to a work camp where you would be beaten, or shot, or worked to death.
I, more than anyone, do not want drugs in my neighborhood, nor do i want thieves in my home ... but at what price. These activities can be eradicated with violent-iron-fisted ease. So we can probably all agree that we do not want a crack dealer in front of our children's elementary school, and at the same time agree that we do not necessarily want any aging hippies shot to death for partaking in a joint.
In the same vein, i do not want to see anyone steal the Mona Lisa from the wall of a museum, but i do not think that a 10 year old who steals a pack of Wrigley's Spearmint gum from the grocery store should be publicly executed.
So here it is quite easy to see the grey area and understand that order can be maintained (to some extent) without extreme reactions to bad behavior. A father can explain to his child why we do not run after a ball in the road without knocking out any teeth. A person speeding in their car can be given a ticket to pay a fine and not sent to prision.
But what when the order that is desired to be kept is not that of civilized society but order in the realm of thoughts and ideas? What happens when a government, or an outspoken minority seek to use any means at their disposal to distroy dissenting views, thoughts and facts.
"That would never happen!" you say.
Don't be too sure. In 1798 the congress of the United States passed the "Alien and Sedition Acts" and then president John Adams signed them into law. The purpose of the law was to protect the U.S. from "alien agents of hostile foreign powers" and it was in fact used by the party in power to round up rivals and imprision them. In 1802 Thomas Jefferson became president, declared the laws unconstitutional, pardoned the offenders convicted under the acts and had them released from prision. That's right, four years later thay were still in prision.
Too old an example? Ok, fast forward 117 years to Schenck v. United States. In 1919 the U.S. army was full on recruiting volenteers to fight in WWI. Schenck was the secretary of the Socialist Party and had the audacity to encourage young men to think (with letters and pamphlets and newspapers) about what the purpose of the war was. Who's war was it, and was it worth dying and killing for? In this Supreme Court case the sainted Oliver Wendall Holmes ruled that this speech was not first amendment protected because "...the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic." (that's where the " you can't shout fire in a crowded theater" from). No one actually shouted anything. A man wrote a letter envouraging young men to think unpopular thoughts.
So that brings us to today ... war in general is unpopular now, political opposition to the status quo power structure is welcomed and in some cases put on a pedestal ... so we don't have any issues with that right?
Are people allowed to point out the lack of evidence that exists for the idea of one species evolving to another? Are school children? Are people allowed to express the belief that marrige is a covenant from God for a man and a woman to share in? Are beauty pagent contestants? So there is no gun barrel, there are no interment camps for those who violate the unwritten ... yet. But children are being suspended from school for expressing beliefs that have 10 times more scientific merit than the idea that we evolved from salamanders to iguanas to i don't know what to monkeys to cave men to people. The military industrial complex has given way to the media industrial complex. All the necessary facts can be found in popular opinion ... not majority opinion, but the opinion of a few "news" people in NYC. I think that cars are making the polar bears starve, i think that hairspray is causing the deserts of the world to grow (oh wait, desertification has been reversing for almost a decade ... bust out the "hair net").
The foundaion of our society is that of unconventional thought, and the scars upon our nation come in silencing of the small voices, small voices who, more often than not, are right in hindsight.

Return of the Pinko

For what it's worth there was once a Pinko ... and he's back. Not like "he's baaaaack", but back. Maybe he was never gone, just quiet ... really, really quiet.
So, for those of you who do not know, the term "Pinko" is a 1950's anti-communist epithet used often to describe anyone who did not agree with the black list or McCarthy's campaign of absurd paranoia against any person who once wore red socks ... or sold state department secrets to the soviet union. Both of which were frowned upon in polite circles at the time, and red socks are still pretty risque in certain arenas. At any rate, much after the end of the McCarthy era in American politics i found myself thinking very unconventional thoughts ... crazy things like workers maybe should have an ownership stake in the place they work at and possibly even have some control there of, children shouldn't starve to death, "representative republic" is a dirty word and is NOT synonomous with "democracy", you know, thoughts like that .... it got so bad i gave pennies to the poor and everything. At any rate, some lovely people who thought i was a tad off center and unreasonably outspoken about it (but who loved me none the less) began calling me " The Pinko". So, here we find ourselves a decade or so later and the Pinko is back after a time of introspective silence. So, i looked inside myself and realized there was not a whole lot there to look at ... so i looked outside myself and now i'm back with all the same views about working people and feeding children and giving pennies to the poor (no need to even mention the failure of "representitive republic" to be democratic) and now i have the added support of Biblical truth and a relationship with Jesus Christ to add to the mix. I used to say that Jesus was the very first communist, but now i realize that i was never really a communist, just an uninformed christian with red socks. So that's were the name came from and where the name is now and so forth and so on.

I miss him already.

So, here it is the first ever post on my blog ... 30 minutes ago i was not sure what a blog was and now i have one. So if you have a blog in the woods and no one reads it ...?
Last night my friend passed away, we worked together, we work long days, we work long weeks, we work a lot ... it is hot, the deadlines are many and forever tightening, Murphy's law is tested and proven every day. We attempt to fix between 40 and 60 cars every day, in the process we try to make people happy by meeting their time related expectations, we pray that nothing goes wrong, that the parts come, that they come on time, that the right part is in the box, that the bolts that were put on your car 11 years ago in a factory do not break upon removal, that we correctly diagnosed your problem ... one or all of these little beauties hiccup in our face every day. So every day, for 11 hours a day we face these challenges together, it bonds us.
He was special though, every one talked to him everyday, he was good at his job and he had the uncommon ability to listen and not judge. Everyone shared their hearts with him, you knew he would listen and never repeat what you said. He loved his wife, he loved his children, he served his country in the Navy, he knew who he was and where he came from.
He's gone. He is gone and all we are left with is the blue two story tool box with the blue side cabnet ... it is covered with stickers; a Boston Red Sox magnet, a #3 Dale Earnheart memorial magnet, a 2004 Red Sox season calander, Edelbrock, MAC Tools, Snap On Tools, Laconia, NH Motorcycle week, A/C Delco, "Beware of Owner", something about chrome, a New England Patriots championship bumper sticker, Jasper Engines and Transmissions, Nitro ... there is a tool cart fulley stocked for a day at work today, there is a radio, and a Boston Red Sox coffee mug ... looking at these things today i miss him and it occus to me that all of these things do not in anyway represent who he was. He was my friend and we all loved him.